Liz Priestley

Liz Priestley

  • Biography

    Origins and Destinations
    Liz Priestley ~ a solo exhibition
    Opening Thursday 14th November 2024

    Many cultures and societies through the centuries have looked to the natural environment for explanations for their existence, as well as their life's journey, to its evidential conclusion.

    This exhibition is an opportunity to give expression to my connection to the natural environment, on a smaller more personal scale.

    As an artist I look to my immediate surroundings to find comfort and joy. It is in these moments that I am inspired to contemplate my own existence. What has brought me to this point, and where, therefore, will this path take me.

    I choose to give expression to these sentiments, by creating a suite of imagined landscapes reflecting that experience. And in which hopefully the viewer will find their own inspiration. These are the culmination of many experienced vistas, overtime, in many different settings. All of which give explanation to the influence, of the natural environment in my life.

    Liz Priestley is a regional artist living and working in the small village of Manilla, in northern NSW. Encaustic is her chosen medium. Liz’s work is best described as a combined interpretation of both the immediate physical landscape, and that of the internal landscape. It is an exploration of the subject, viewed via a nostalgic lens.

    “Memory and an emotional connection to place, are the elements I try to bring together in my work.Our earliest memories are what fascinates me. I strive towards pinpointing the connection between our first impressions of our environment, and its emotional corollary within our future. Landscape is our conduit for the spiritual, this has been illustrated across cultures and generations. By using encaustic, I am alternately layering, carving and scraping out an image. There is a revelation in the work as it progresses, and its final form. This process is a physical representation of searching those layers of memory. The resulting image is the vehicle in which the viewer resonates with their own epiphany of personal, binding memories”

    Her choice of encaustic (wax) as a medium in the creative process is for both its architectural and reductive qualities, allowing for a narrative to build through the layers which can then also be selectively revealed by carving, scraping and melting. “I began using encaustic with oils as merely a vehicle to add texture and layering to my work. Over time however, as I became comfortable with the medium and I realised its amazing properties and the extent of its flexibility; I started to use it as the base medium for all my work. Encaustic has a unique combination of characteristics which I love: It hardens immediately so there’s no drying time, it is semi-transparent and so layering can bring out lovely images, and it can be sculpted into. Not to mention that you can transfer images onto it, polish the surface, collage onto it and use a multitude of other mediums with it!”

Showing 1–12 of 15 artworks

Liz Priestley

Reverie
125 x 125 cm Encaustic on Birch Sold

Liz Priestley

Descending Skies II
125 x 125 cm Encaustic on Birch Sold

Liz Priestley

Beyond III
122 x 122 cm Encaustic on Birch $3,700.00

Liz Priestley

The Retreat
122 x 122 cm Encaustic on Birch $3,700.00

Liz Priestley

Descending Skies I
122 x 122 cm Encaustic on Birch Sold

Liz Priestley

Entreaty
105 x 105 cm Encaustic on Birch $3,550.00

Liz Priestley

A Conjuring
105 x 105 cm Encaustic on Birch $3,550.00

Liz Priestley

Beyond II
83 x 83 cm Encaustic on Birch $2,800.00

Liz Priestley

Beyond I
83 x 83 cm Encaustic on Birch $2,800.00

Liz Priestley

Glimmer
83 x 83 cm Encaustic on Birch $2,800.00

Liz Priestley

Riverline Study IV
65 x 65 cm Encaustic on Birch Sold

Liz Priestley

Riverline Study III
65 x 65 cm Encaustic on Birch $1,950.00